Entertainment

Solid Rice biography shares highs and lows

By Eugene Kane

MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL

Posted:
01/13/2008 02:59:56 AM PST

Updated:
01/13/2008 02:59:56 AM PST

I will never forget my encounter with Condoleezza Rice.

It was at Stanford University during a 1992 journalism fellowship. Rice, then a Stanford Russian history professor soon to be named provost, agreed to meet with a group of Knight Fellows to engage in spirited repartee about current events. In her late 30s, she was already tabbed a rising star in Republican circles, years before she would become security adviser and secretary of state for President George W. Bush.

It just added to her allure that she was the only African-American woman anyone could name doing what she was doing at that point in history. During our talk, I managed to get Rice's ire flowing by questioning her support of the conservative policies in the areas of race relations.

Her eyes flashed hot. "I was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama," I remember her saying. "Nobody can tell me about being black."

That's one of the themes in a revealing new biography about Rice, arguably the most influential -- and powerful -- African-American woman in history. The current secretary of state and former national security adviser under President Bush already has accomplished more than most acknowledged black leaders, but her story is likely just beginning.

Elisabeth Bumiller, a New York Times reporter who interviewed more than 150 sources, including Rice herself, for the book, paints her subject as an ambitious figure who has long harbored dreams of political achievement, including a run for governor of California and perhaps even the White House in the future.

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Bumiller captures Rice's unique status as the child of the South and Jim Crow racism who rose to become a leading American stateswoman. Rice overcame her own racial challenges, which included being underestimated by some of America's most powerful men, including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

As one of the perceived architects of the Iraq war for Bush and as his main foreign policy adviser, Rice has her accomplishments presented in "An American Life" as a mixed bag.

On the one hand is her stunning rise as a foreign affairs expert who sat in on historic world changes as the adviser for both Bush and his father; on the other is a contemporary assessment by her peers that she deserves much blame for both the Sept. 11 intelligence failures and the misguided policies during the Iraq invasion.

Bumiller makes it clear that Rice was an important figure in the Bush administration, due to her close relationship with the president. It's easy to accept Bumiller's conclusion that Rice -- one of the most impressive people Bush ever met and as a single woman with no children, a constant social companion for the president and his wife -- was considered part of the Bush family, and that one of her strongest ties to the president was her ability to serve as trusted adviser to the man who gained the presidency with perhaps the weakest foreign affairs knowledge of any commander-in-chief in American history. That Rice was a foreign policy wonk extraordinaire contributed to her reputation as the most atypical black woman to command an international stage.

Bumiller provides an intimate portrait of Rice, through her childhood in Birmingham, a place so known for racist attacks during the civil rights movement, it was nicknamed "Bombingham" after a bomb planted at a church killed four black girls, including one of Rice's childhood playmates.

Rice's sense of racial identification is presented as being shaped by her upbringing by strong black parents who refused to allow the racism of the time to shape her perceptions. Although Rice grew up in a part of America where blacks were often denied public accommodations at restaurants and restrooms, her parents, both educators, solved the problem by not eating out and never using public bathrooms. Jim Crow didn't exist for them.

But the most compelling portions of "An American Life" deal with Rice's presence at some of the most compelling periods of American government during the past seven years. Bumiller talked to Rice about the events of Sept. 11 and subsequent criticisms of her failure to heed warnings about terrorist attacks, as well as the run-up to the Iraq invasion and its subsequent results. Many of Rice's comments have the air of "spin" to absolve her from some of her decisions. To Bumiller's credit, she takes a hard line and places much blame for the confusion on Rice.

"An American Life" is a tough biography that holds Rice accountable for some of the most egregious national security blunders in history. But Bumiller also concedes that if Rice manages to find solutions for Middle East peace, Iran and North Korea, her term as secretary of state could be considered in a more positive light.

What's left after reading "An American Life" is the sense that we are witnessing the career arc of a significant historical figure who hasn't yet finished her fantastic journey.